Books
by yeaka
Summary: A collection of Severus Snape/Irma Pince gift drabbles. (Drabbles. SSIP, het.)
1. Promise

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its contents, and I'm not making any money off this.

Warnings: Het, drabbles.

A/N: Unrelated drabbles for y3llowdaisi3s on my LJ.

* * *

She takes the old, tattered text from his long fingers, with barely-veiled disappointment in her eyes.

"You promised it on time," she says, and tries to make it a whisper, not a hiss. Not with him.

If she's cold to him he'll be cold to her, and Irma can't go back to that. It's too many years, too many months, too many minutes spent chipping away at it all, and he still defies something this fundamental. Books are all she has. She clutches it to her chest in his absence, and Severus grumbles (not unkindly), "I'm sorry."

Because he doesn't say sorry often, Irma lets it slide. She lets too much slide with him. He's the only person who can do this – be late with her things. She's a strict woman; her possessions are golden. Severus is the same way; he should know. They should have an understanding.

He's a smart man, and she thinks he knows her feelings, and maybe that's why he thinks he can break all the rules. He grabs the black sleeve of her robes as she turns back to her office, hidden from students by the walls of paper.

Severus takes a breath before promising, slowly, "I'll make it up to you." Like he promised to bring the book back on time, like everyone does.

But then he leans in, and pecks her cheek. And she's too old to need anything else, too mature to need tongue, too immature not to want it. He turns to sweep away, robes billowing.

"Severus," Irma calls, when he's nearly around the corner. He pauses, but doesn't look back. He's missing her stifled smile. "If you're ever late with one of my books again, I'll want a lot more than that."


	2. Stowaway

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm riding a carriage, what does it look like?"

Severus' nose wrinkles, and he eyes Irma's dark form from top to bottom, pale skin cloaked in black, clinging fabric. If it weren't for Severus' ingrained paranoia, he might never have noticed her inside, until it was far too late. He sneers wryly, "Why are you stowing away in my carriage?"

"I am traveling to Hogsmeade like yourself, and for your information this is a Hogwarts carriage. Or is that your Thestral out front?"

Severus stops just short of saying, 'you're infuriating,' and settles down for the ride. He crosses his arms like a child, and hisses, "I am not going to Madam Puddifoot's."

"Of course not," Irma grumbles, "That place is ridiculous. What kind of woman do you take me for?"

"The kind that stows away in my carriage."

"The Three Broomsticks, then."

"The Hog's Head."

"What kind of woman do you take me for?"

Severus rolls his eyes, and wonders vaguely how much the Inn's cheapest room will cost him.


	3. Lost

When Severus places the book in Irma's hands, she looks at him like he's a god.

He looks at her like she's deranged, because sometimes he thinks she is. And he's not very good at not being a dick about things.

"I've been looking for this for ages," she says, so intensely that it looks like her eyes will bulge out of her skull.

"I know," Severus says.

"Where'd you find it?" she asks, like she'll hunt down the closest student to her lost book's finding place, and beat that child into the ground with the heavy volume.

Filch found it. But Filch would never stand a chance with Irma anyway, so Severus just grunts, "Around."

Irma looks at him suspiciously, because she's not very good at not being a cunt about things.

But she still grabs his wrist, and leads him into her office. Severus glares at any wandering student eyes that dare follow them. Irma closes the door none too softly behind them, and Severus arches an eyebrow. She turns to look at him with fire in her eyes, and says, "Let me thank you."

Severus isn't sure which of them moves first, but he is sure that he has a very good chance with Irma.


	4. Participation

"Sing," Irma hisses, warningly and under her breath.

"Not a chance," Severus grumbles, equally as silent and stubborn.

Irma chances a sideways glare at him, and drops her hand strategically under the staff table. Severus' dark eyes follow it suspiciously; he knows her too well.

"Everybody all together now," Albus is saying in the background, voice warm and booming into every corner of the hall. "Everyone pick your favourite tune!"

"Severus Snape, you will participate with the rest of us or I will make this either the most painful or embarrassing feast of your life." ...She's a very fervent woman when she means to be. Severus raises an eyebrow without looking at her.

"Painful or embarrassing?"

Her glove-covered fingers drift up his thigh. "I haven't decided yet."

Rubeus looks sideways next to her, and Irma shoots him a look so cold that he hastily refocuses on the student body. This is why she keeps her voice low, and why Severus will have such a hard time if he insists on being such a sourpuss, after giving her a very similar rant last night about her own cold tactics. Quick to judge others, slow to change. If Irma's going to twist her strict features into Albus' ridiculous notions, she certainly isn't going to do it alone.

She keeps her hand firmly on Severus' thigh, tantalizingly close to the target, as Albus lifts his wand like a conductor over an orchestra.

Then Irma and Severus grumble 'Jingle Bells' more quietly and stiffly than others. But they stick to the original tune, because as much as they both loathe such holiday nonsense, neither is creative enough to do anything else.


	5. Leather

Severus doesn't really care which of them does it. When he returns to his quarters to find her sitting naked atop his bed, a leather whip held firmly between her teeth, his mind isn't really on what they're going to do with it.

Severus just knows what he's going to do with Irma, and that's enough. Her legs are crossed elegantly over the edge of his bed, and he belatedly notices she's still wearing her black pumps. Her arms are stiff at her sides, hands flat in the bed, nails painted silver. Her dark hair is pulled back in a tight bun, and her crimson lipstick simply calls to him.

But there is a way to do things, and Severus closes the door with more patience than he feels. He shows none of his eagerness as he struts towards her, stopping just a meter away. He keeps his eyes pointedly on her sharp face (not her shapely figure – her perky breasts, her thin waist, or her jutting hips) and summons the necessary willpower not to breathe too quickly. It's a game they play – a power struggle – and Severus _never_ likes to lose.

He's standing square with her as he slowly begins to unbutton his robes, one at a time, like he would do any other day. When they fall to the floor at his feet he starts on his dress shirt, long-sleeved and black. They dress like they're sister and brother, they glare like as much. But they don't behave platonically when they're alone, and Severus' shirt joins his robes.

He keeps his pants on as he strides towards her, head high and eyes, perhaps, a little dilated. Irma watches him levelly, and doesn't move a millimeter.

Severus reaches forward, and plucks the whip from her lips. Irma opens her mouth without breaking her intense gaze. Severus curls his long fingers around the smooth leather. He tilts it between them.

It's still folded in his grasp, and Severus presses the tip against her collarbone. He drags it slowly down between her breasts, and Irma breathes, "I was hoping you wouldn't have brought your last book back on time."

It's Severus' turn to raise an eyebrow, and a smirk tugs at his thin lips. So he is going to do it, then. She brought the toy just for him.

Casually, he informs her, "You never paid me for that Dreamless Sleep Potion."

"No," she answers, and Severus admires the way her chest swells with her breath. Her nipples are hardened against the cold night air, and Severus doesn't warm the dungeons in the winter. He thrives in the cold, and they both know he'll warm her up, in time. "I suppose I didn't."

Severus uncurls the whip in his hand. He watches her natural bedroom eyes as he does it. Then he orders quietly, "On your hands and knees."

There's a fire in Irma's eyes that no one but Severus can ever harness, and he watches her thin, bared muscles as they move across the bed. When the power has been decided – for tonight, at least – and Irma's on all fours in the middle of his mattress, she breaks down and eyes his form. The hunger in her eyes sends a thrill through Severus' body, and the way she bites her lip makes him harden.

He cracks the whip warningly across the floor, and stalks towards his prey.


	6. Elbows

Irma's elbow is sharp, like Severus'. They're all hard angles and long limbs and thin bodies. She's as pale as he is, her hair's as dark, and she's just as unbearable to sleep with. She curls up so close to him that Severus is pressed right against the edge of his bed, which is more than large enough for two people. Provided those two people have boundaries.

Irma, evidently, doesn't. He can feel her cold skin all along his body, and doesn't say anything about it, even though he glares. Her bare breasts are flattened against his back, and when he shifts his muscles he can feel her nipples, perked with the cold. The one good thing about the winter season. Everything else Severus hates, from the decorated trees, to the snowmen, to the red-and-white outfits.

Well, perhaps not the tinsel. But only because Irma looked so very scrumptious last night, tied to the bedpost and wearing nothing else.

He should've never untied her.

Severus makes a discontented sniffing noise. Irma sleep-elbows him hard in the back, and Severus goes tumbling out of the blankets, onto the floor.


	7. Music

"Out!"

The student on the other side of the isle shrieks and falls over, having just retracted a book from the shelf to find Irma's face on the other side.

Irma canters around the bookcase to chase the scrambling-to-his-feet-student, crowing, "Out! Get out!"

She passes a cluster of terrified looking girls at a table and gives them the same treatment. "Out! Everybody get out of my library!"

Her shrill voice echoes through the dusty rows, and every stray student scrambles to the exit. Irma watches them go like a hawk, before returning to her office.

There she pulls her freshly-unwrapped Christmas present out of its packaging, and sets it down in the center of the table. She winds it up and pulls out the card, reading as the music box tinkles a solemn tune in high-pitched, metallic clinks. The dead air fills with the mechanical sound, and Irma spares a moment to observe the spinning ballerina atop the music box.

Then back to the card.

_'To fill your silence with._

- Severus.'


	8. Double

Irma watches his skilled fingers add the Wiggentree bark, and then she stares while he stirs the potion. After a moment of rigid silence in the darkness of his dungeon, Severus grumbles, "I gave you a re-gluing potion last week."

"Not enough," Irma primly informs him, drawing herself back together. Watching Severus work has a way of undoing her carefully-crafted exterior, reducing her to a drooling school-girl. His talented hands know exactly what they're doing, and can brew her anything at all in the world, and will surely be her downfall. He caresses each ingredient, commands regally over his cauldron, and wears a gorgeously endearing expression of concentration as he does it. So dedicated, so intelligent. She wants double every potion she gets from him, and she wants to watch it all happen.

Severus makes a noncommittal grunt as he switches the direction of his stirring, and Irma tilts her head as the potion swirls from orange to purple. They continue on in silence for a little while, before Irma muses aloud (to Severus' instant startled gawking,) "Could you brew flavoured lube?"


	9. Daydream

Irma's survival (pride-protection) instincts kick in as soon as the words come out of Severus' mouth. "What are you daydreaming about?" He's slightly sneering as usual, and Irma stiffens abruptly.

"I was not daydreaming."

Severus quirks an eyebrow. "You clearly were. Or do you normally stare blankly at the side of my head in between bites at meals?"

Irma harrumphs, "For your information, I stare at the side of your head all the time."

And then she goes back to eating, and this time stares blankly across the general student body as she daydreams about the two of them marrying on the beach somewhere, him in a nice muggle tuxedo, and her in a gorgeous, flowing white dress. They would have all the staff there, and Albus would be their officiant. Rubeus could give her away, and Minera could give Severus away, and Filius could be their ring bearer. They'd have a very nice, perhaps two-meter-tall cake, in the shape of a book atop a cauldron. There'd be classical music, and lots of dancing, and classy champagne. After the ceremony they'd shoo everyone away to wait at the reception while they take wedding photographs, of Severus holding her bride-style in her dress, and them lying together in the waves. Then they'd do their first dance into the reception hall, and Severus' talented hands would sweep her off her feet. They'd have a charming dinner filled with sophisticated toasts, and then they'd shoo all their guests away, and walk down to the beach with their fingers intertwined, and make love in the sand.

"I repeat; what are you daydreaming about?"

"Shut up, Severus."


	10. Dawn

The bed weighs down where she sits, rolling Severus over. His face smacks into her ass, and he jolts to full consciousness, sitting up jerkily in bed. Irma seems to pay him no mind, and continues pulling the ribbon off a little box.

Severus snatches it out of her busy hands and chucks it to the nightstand. "For goodness sakes, Irma, what time is it?"

"Dawn," Irma sniffs, before bending across him to reach for her present. "Which makes it Christmas, which makes me entitled to my gift."

Severus wrenches the box out of her grip again, and hisses, "You are not entitled to anything, you silly woman." Severus holds the box tightly to his chest as he snuggles back beneath the covers, ready to catch up on the other five hours he'll need to function properly. When Irma moves to pry it from his arms Severus rolls onto his stomach, head buried in his pillow and present trapped.

Irma makes a growling noise not unlike an angered cat and wrenches the blankets back, climbing quickly atop him. She straddles his hips and tries to fish under him, and he elbows her bony arms when she comes too close to success. Her naked front presses into his naked back and her breasts jiggle against him, _almost_ distracting him. But he's Severus Snape, and he doesn't lose focus, ever. Irma hisses angrily beside his ear, "Severus, give me my present this instant!"

"You will wait until Christmas morning like everyone else," he growls back, but into the pillow, so most of it's muffled.

"It is Christmas morning – I told you!"

"Dawn is not morning!"

"Severus!" Irma beats on his shoulder blades with her delicate fists, which does absolutely no damage. She's too thin and too light for him to even notice she's there. Eventually she gives up and rolls next to him.

He can tell she's still fuming, even without looking, because he knows her.

A few minutes later, when Severus has almost fallen back to sleep, she grumbles, "It's a ring, isn't it?"

Severus grumbles back, "Yes."


End file.
